that love for nature, which is inherent in us all. And I would 

 ask, who is there, however the cares or the pleasures of life 

 may have blunted those earlier feelings, who has not one day 

 derived pleasurable emotions from their contemplation, and 

 who does not remember those joyous times when, at the first 

 breaking loose from school, he has hied him to the wood and 

 the hedge-row, in search of his painted prize ? 



Few can have failed to notice that wonderful and all-ab- 

 sorbing feeling of anxiety, that utter disregard of self, which, 

 during the breeding season, produces so remarkable a change 

 in the nature of many of our birds : converting that wariness 

 for which they are at other times remarkable, into the most 

 heedless disregard of danger. 



Numerous anecdotes are related of the devotedness of the 

 Partridge, and other species of birds, in the protection of their 

 young. 



The Misletoe Thrush, usually so shy, seeks the immediate 

 neighbourhood of our houses, during the season of incubation, 

 rearing its young ones within sight of our windows, and 

 spreading terror amongst the rest of the feathered race, by its 

 pugnacious persecution of all intruders. A Kestel Hawk, 

 belonging to a gentleman in Derby, whilst quietly seated 

 upon an apple-tree, unconscious of harm, having excited the 

 suspicions of a Misletoe Thrush, which had its nest near, 

 received its death-blow from its bill, at a single pounce. 



I have before noticed the assiduity with which the Eider 

 Duck covers its eggs ; and I have since had a further oppor- 

 tunity of admiring it. Upon one of the Norwegian islands we 

 visited, where they are very numerous, we were accompanied 



